


Chronicle of a Life Foretold

by Sab



Series: Post-"Amor Fati" [1]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Episode s07e01: Sixth Extinction, Gen, Mulder Hears Voices, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Stream of Consciousness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1999-11-10
Updated: 1999-11-10
Packaged: 2017-11-30 00:00:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/693028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sab/pseuds/Sab
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John Cotton in "Bless the Beasts and Children" had the right initials and I wish I had something to read. (Uploaded by Punk, from You Guys Are Just Fucked.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chronicle of a Life Foretold

**Author's Note:**

> For Aurora, who beat me to it, for Ernscully who gave me a better title, too late, and for JZJenn who said "Joe Christmas" but I couldn't make it work.

John Cotton in "Bless the Beasts and Children" had the right initials and I wish I had something to read. John Cotton led a band of misfits to the ends of the earth, freed the bison and drove his car off a cliff; he was finished, he was done, the world had stopped listening and wouldn't listen and slapped the gavel down, no more thoughts screaming, streaming, shut the fuck up, shut the fuck up, you are too much for us, you who has fallen to join us and has shown us our faults, our insignificances, our lost in this place as idiots filling up space. Distract me distract me distract me distract me distract me distract me.

Hey, isn't there a game show on, somewhere? Who wants to be a millionaire? Come on, fools, you know you want it, money can't buy me love, buy me a car, buy me a house, buy me a Palm Pilot, an iMac, a Nokia wireless phone – it could be my only phone! Maybe she's born with it; maybe it's Maybelline. I want to be a millionaire; I want to come home to Joy, I want to work with Kathie Lee Gifford, I want to make Christmas Albums, chestnuts roasting, joy to the world, the Lord is come. Distract me distract me distract me, remind me of the simple pleasures of basketball rubber against parquet wood, remind me of coffee, of blueberry Bubbilicious that was discontinued in about 1990 but I can still taste it, still smell it when I close my eyes and picture the train station in Boston, early steam rising from the tracks, pink and pink ceramic nametags and figurines in gift shops, "I love you, Mother," "Bless this house," "Sometimes I wake up grouchy; other times I let him sleep." Let him in, let Regis in, turn him on, turn me on, I may be mute and silent but inside here it's locker room after a winning game, it's Guadalcanal, it's Omaha Beach, it's Matthew Broderick in "War Games," I didn't mean it, I didn't want it, let me out let me out let me out!

Joy to the world, the Lord is come. And as rapidly, he is losing his mind.

She's here.

Somewhere there's a plane touching down and I can hear her, I can smell her sweat, too many nights awake without showering she's running, a man smiles at her as she speeds by and she shoots him a nasty look, she's busy, and I want to shout out to her hey! Stop! Hey! These are your last moments, your precious few, smile back, smile back, smile back. But she can't hear me and she's running for her life, like it's her life she's running for, like this has nothing to do with the world hanging delicately off fraying dental floss, strong enough for a man, but pH balanced for a woman she's running, she can't hear the sound of her feet as they pound the linoleum of the airport, the distant echo of announcements being made, people blissful, a child takes her father's hand and blinks up at him "I'm scared, daddy. I love you," and he picks her up, folds her into his arms and slips through the metal detector and a black woman with blonde hair smiles and gives him back his keys, "you have a nice trip, now" and they disappear down the concourse and she turns and presses her face to his neck, not wanting him to know she's started sucking her thumb again.

She's here. 

And with this gift I've been given, with everything I've come to know now that I never asked for, I never asked for, damn it! And with this insight I have across worlds, for they are, indeed, worlds within worlds, world without end, ending, one after another, in syncopated time, with this instinct I can't do the one damned thing I want to do, I need to do, as simple as calling out "who wants to be a millionaire?" to her, to everyone around me, world without end; I can't open my mouth.

Time doesn't work that way, and from somewhere I can hear her saying "not everything is about you, Mulder; this is my life," but she's lying, and from somewhere I can hear her saying "I love you" and I want to believe, but she's lying then, now, too. I want to believe, I wanted to believe, I wanted the truth but not like this, damn it, not like this. Fucking bastards I don't even know who I'm angry with but why the fuck did you listen to me? Why the fuck did you give me this? I don't want to know these truths, I don't want to be responsible for the day I get out of this hospital and can't find that childlike fascination about the power locks on the rental car, about the waitress who winks at me and flicks free cinnamon on my cappucino, about that first real day of spring when the ground is still crunchy underfoot and the new leaves are that impossible green of frozen peas, of Gatorade, something so perfect it can't be real. I remember myself ugly, smiling to myself at the Playboy channel as I'm drifting off to sleep, the ugly-selfish smile of a man who thinks satisfaction comes with a thirty second orgasm and the rest of a warm beer and another perfect night, alone, no one to answer to, no one to be responsible for, no one to hurt. It's over, it's over, it's over.

Time doesn't work that way and she's here.

Her hair pulled back from her face she is beautiful, she is simple-beautiful, she smacks me on the ass with a rolled up towel, come on, Fox, batter up.

And she's speaking to me now, wasting breath talking aloud because I can hear her, and she knows I can hear her, "I know you can hear me," apologizing for ever doubting me, asking me to hold on, to hold on for what she's learned, for what she wants me to walk through with her.

Fucking idiot bitch thinks the secrets of the universe were written with chalk in the rain. Fucking idiot blissfully ignorant bitch, she's left me, she's abandoned me to do this alone, she's playing melodrama, pretending she's got it, by George she's got it, pretending there's anything worth knowing that can be understood with a golf pencil and a Navajo-to-English lexicon. Who wants to be a millionaire, Scully? You should enter to win, it's the million dollar question you're asking, the million dollar question you'll answer, with your years of science-knowledge and education that I've come to lean on, come to trust, come to love.

Would you hate me if I told you I was right the first time? That there is nothing worth knowing that can be taught; there is nothing worth believing that can be understood in words except this: I love you, Scully. Like Samantha before you you depended on me, you challenged me like a brat and you showed me that shimmer of really being alive that comes with forgetting yourself in the face of another person. For years I've forgotten myself and worried only about you, about protecting that fragile origami structure of flesh and bone, gene and genetics, folded fluttering in my arms, smiling up at me, "Mulder, it's me."

Please stop talking, damn it, please stop crying, Scully! There's a world out there for you with the wind blowing through it and when the spark ignites it won't leave ash when it burns away. Please stop talking, Scully, please let go of my hand and get out there, leave me to this stuck and alone and find something beautiful, find something perfect where you can still see it, see yourself in a puddle of rain as you pass by and brush a hair from your eyes, feel the amazing power of the human animal as the tiny muscles in your arm flex and extend as you push the door open, feel the shockwave of vibration against bone as the door shuts behind you, go home. Shake your hand out, when it's asleep. Drink a beer, drink ten. Watch the TV on mute with captions on; read out loud to yourself. Take the phone off the hook. Fill a bubble bath. Get a paper cut. Eat McDonalds. Remember the kid's table at Thanksgiving, you and Melissa plotting the hostile takeover of your grandparents' house, hiding clues for your cousins to find, playing games in the dark and hiding so the adults with their drinks clinking in the livingroom, the smell of old-lady perfume won't bother you and you think you're so smart, you've outwitted them, and it's only later you learn that your dad knew all along and had said to your mother, let them stay up a little while longer, it's a holiday. 

Get out of here, Scully. Get out of here, now. My god, Jesus Christ, I've got no one left to implore to, now, but come on, Scully, get out of here. I love you so much my chest hurts and I'm watching you there with tears in your eyes and you're asking me to hold on like it's really up to you, like you have some control over it, like me holding on could have anything to do with you, so small and perfect here in this origami world fluttering away.

It's over, Scully. I've got the wrong initials but it's calling me anyway, F.M. like an FM radio calling me across wires of letters of implants of information of information of information. I wanted to believe. 

Yes, yes, I hear you, I hear you choking back fear in the face of strength, false strength, for me, through your tears, but I swear I don't need you, I can't use you, I can't take you with me, where I'm going. Yes, yes, I know you see us together and you want us together and for six years we were together and we will always be together because time doesn't work that way, but I can't take you with me, where I'm going, and I don't want you to try and follow.

I love you, Scully. Dana Katherine Scully, daughter of Margaret, daughter of Bill. I love you for generations, life begets life, world without end.

I'm tired, now. Apostles, later, will betray me; with the best intentions, you will deny my name. I don't blame you for it; I forgive you, I forgive them all. 

I'm shutting you out, now; I'm shutting out the tired stream of necessity, your lonely, perfect, ignorant professions of profundity, what you've found, what we've found together. The one gift left to me is sleep, and I'm unwrapping it, curling up inside it, now.

I feel your hand in mine; you know I do. And if ever we met on a plane of the minds where we were untouchable, hear me in this abyss. I love you. Save yourself. Say goodbye.


End file.
